Not from the territory stuff, but just randomly thought of it: Roddy Piper burying Tony Atlas's gimmick on commentary while Vince tries to stand up for it will always be hilarious to me.

They populated All Star Wrestling on Peacock through February 1982, so I decided to check in at that same point in September 1981 to see what WWF's weekly programming was like then. At least with regard to the 9/12/81 episode: holy **** it was boring. Absolutely nothing happened. Basically no plot advancement - I couldn't even glean what stories may have been going on - and the squash matches were extremely slow-moving.

I feel inclined to give it one more episode just to make sure that wasn't an especially bad episode, but if the next one isn't a big upgrade then I'll stick to territory stuff.

I don't know if Kamala was ever much more than belly slaps and chops, but he sure as hell was booked much stronger in the 80s.

This is a really interesting idea and I'm going to give it a shot.

I watched the "first" episode of Mid-Atlantic last night. They've started just before Flair wins his first NWA title.

In case you don't know, Jim Nelson, who wrestled on that show, will become more prominent there for a while. In later years, he'll become Boris Zhukov.


When I reach January 1982, I'm going to add World Class Championship Wrestling. 1982 is good (I've watched reruns on ESPN in the later '80s).

But, 1983 is all-time great and 1984-1985 are very good too. I was able to watch all of that on Boston TV back in the day.

Yeah, had the same plan to add WCCW at the start of 1982 as long as I maintain an interest in following these. I guess the start of 1982 is the point when they rebranded from Big Time Wrestling to WCCW.

I watched a second episode of All Star Wrestling and it was still pretty boring. Think I'll cut that series out of my chronological watch and maybe just pepper in the sporadic WWF house shows that are on Peacock since there's only a small handful of those each year.

Starting WCCW when the Freebirds show up would probably be ideal...which is probably 1982 anyway. Still one of the best turns ever.

I think the Freebirds show up in November of 1982.


WWF All Star Wrestling wasn't even the primary syndicated show.

WWF Championship Wrestling was the #1 show where the angles usually played out. But, even that show should be less interesting than Mid-Atlantic, Mid-South, or World Class.

The WWF had a slower pace as a territory with a monthly circuit. The other three territories were one-week or two-week territories with a faster pace.

Just spotted her ringside at Survivor Series '94 also. She was definitely a superfan.

There’s fans that are front row of like every Raw

That doesn't even sound appealing to me when Raw was at its very best. If I had limitless funds to follow WWE around, even during a peak era I can only imagine attending the major PPVs.

Assuming they are trust fund babies cause not sure how you can afford that and also travel to every show. Assuming they go to smackdown and PPVs too

Batista was one impressive beast

I'm enjoying him Smashing cruiserweight on his initial run here, great theme too

This arm wrestling segment with Scott Steiner was a really good build up to him vs Triple H

https://youtu.be/XF8trDHr4JM

Lol never fails to crack me up, what a segment!

Roddy Piper vs. Jay Youngblood from the 10/17/81 Mid-Atlantic was quite good. I'm always open to actually letting Roddy Piper impress me, since most of my relationship with Piper as a fan is:

1. See him for the first time in that ****ing segment with Brother Love and Morton Downey Jr. at WrestleMania V.
2. Spend the rest of my life resenting him for being part of that segment.

I've finished 1981 for both Mid-Atlantic and Mid-South. I'm going to continue both and add World Class.

The Mid-Atlantic show has better matches but the whole roster is arm-drag happy. You can count on half a dozen arm drags at least in nearly every match.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever get past how the small studio being used makes the Mid-Atlantic show look second-rate. The ring appears to be up against a wall on the right side. After a few weeks, I realized the announcers are also nearly on top of the ring. It's such a tiny space.

Mid-South has a nice small "arena" for their shows similar to the '70s and early '80s WWF that I watched. That gives the show a more legit sporting event feel.

However, Mid-South is "criss-cross" happy. Those guys love to bounce of the ropes in opposite directions a couple times before the babyface drops down, gets jumped over, and then often executes an arm-drag.

World Class will have the best arena and overall look.

But, the competitive level of the matches has been satisfactory in both Mid-Atlantic and Mid-South. It's not the top-star vs. jobber festival of the same-era WWF.

Huh. I gather this is earlier WCCW stuff? Surprised that's where they're putting upload efforts. I don't see this on Peacock yet (but this is also a bot that only detected it on the native WWE Network less than 10 minutes ago).

I'm still working on territory viewing too, but am less far along than Dynasty is.

Could be a different Texas territory . I’d assume there was 3-4 different popular territories in Texas

Yeah it's a bit ambiguous, because I thought WCCW always just went by Big Time Wrestling before rebranding as WCCW. But Google sort of pointed me toward a connection.

I would have dialed it up to see more if it was on Peacock, but I'll have to wait a little for that I guess.

Texas Championship Wrestling appears to be the name of the show. But, it's WCCW/Big Time Wrestling.

And, it's on You Tube.

This thread is so much fun I decided to get the network again. Wanted to start with something fun from around the time WCW was on television where I live so went with Bash at the Beach 1995.

Sting vs Meng for the US title felt like a decent start. That was followed by a TV title defense for The Renegade vs. Paul Orndorff. From there we went to Kamala vs. Jim Duggan. Can't get much worse but they tried with DDP vs. Dave Sullivan.
Well enough is enough and it's time for a change.

That is an impressive amount of lurking to wait almost four years for your first post.

Welcome.

This card sounds like visual torture. Arn Anderson once said he'd rather go through neck surgery that almost killed him rather than wrestling the Renegade again.